President Obama said that the holiday Iftar dinner he hosted at the White House "is also a reminder of the freedoms that bind us together as Americans, including the freedom of religion -- that inviolable right to practice our faiths freely."

Tourism officials in Kenya are to spend 1m shillings (£6,674) to spruce up the grave of Barack Obama’s father ahead of the US president’s visit to the country in July, it was reported on Friday.Barack Hussein Obama Sr was born in western Kenya in 1936 and was killed there in a car accident in 1982. This will be his son’s fourth trip to the east African nation overall but his first since becoming president.